Leader talks about Wheeling High's new focus

Last year a metal pool drain broke at Wheeling High School.

So some students simply built another one.

"They built a drain right here in this lab," Wheeling Principal Laz Lopez told a small group of teachers, students and District 214 school board members on Thursday.

Wheeling High School has been increasing its focus on math, science and engineering for years, adding technical classes to the curriculum. The school also spent about $500,000 last summer to build a special lab for engineering and architectural students.

Lopez led a tour of the school's digital photography lab, heath career classroom and engineering lab before talking about the school's future.

In the past few years, engineering machines replaced woodworking classrooms at Wheeling and rows of computers full of photography software replaced darkrooms.

"If you look at the top 10 earing degrees, most have to do with engineering," Lopez said. "Math is the one thing they all have in common."

One of the metal cutting machines takes up almost an entire room.

"We have machines that sort marbles by color," said Michael Geist, a Wheeling engineering teacher. "We can program robots and build model homes. It's truly college-level engineering on a high school level."

Wheeling faces challenges other District 214 schools do not. For the past five years, enrollment at the school has dropped while the number of at-risk freshmen continues to climb. Wheeling also has the largest number of special education and English as a second language students.

Lopez wants his students to graduate from Wheeling with more than just a diploma. Some Wheeling students will be able to become certified nursing assistants before they graduate - a certification that will help both students who directly enter the work force and those who eventually head to medical school. Some classes Wheeling offers that other schools don't include metal working, computer-integrated manufacturing and engineering design and development.

However that doesn't mean the school is neglecting art and English students, which Lopez defended on Thursday.

"I love those programs," said Lopez pointing out that his school's debate team won the state title seven of the past 11 years. "But my background is in business. These certifications will help students get a real job that will support a family."

Wheeling High School also offers pre-engineering classes to some middle school students, like "The Magic of Electrons" and "Automation and Robotics."

District 214 board members learned that most of the science and engineering classes are paperless. After getting a syllabus on the first day of school, students complete all tests, class work and homework on computers.

"Things have changed," said Jim Perkins, a District 214 school board member. "No more blue books."